Courses for Spring 2019

Anthropology and Global Social Problems: Environment, Development, and Governance

This course offers students an opportunity to examine and analyze a range of contemporary global social problems from an anthropological perspective. We will explore human-environment entanglements with particular attention to intersecting issues of capitalism, international development, and state and non-state governance. Course materials will look at various kinds of work in, on, and with the environment, asking questions about the possibilities of over-working our landscapes, while addressing the potentials for social and environment justice and sustainability.

Anthropology of Food

An exploration of the human experience of food and nutrition from evolutionary, archaeological, and cross-cultural perspectives. The course will review the various approaches employed by anthropologists and archaeologists to understand diet and subsistence in the past and present. Starting with the evolutionary roots of the human diet in Plio-Pleistocene Africa, we will trace patterns of human subsistence to the present, including the social and health implications of the agricultural revolution. We will then explore modern foodways in cross-cultural perspective, focusing on the interplay of ecology, politics, technology, and cultural beliefs.

Language and Migration

This course is part of the Engaged Scholars Program and explores the interconnections between language and migration. We will examine talk about migration – in the form of immigration policy and media representations – as well as talk in contexts of migration including experiences such as border crossing, settlement, and schooling. Given the current context of increasing anti-immigrant rhetoric and an escalation of immigration enforcement, this course raises the timely and important question of how experiences of migration and the politics of mobility are shaped by language. Our investigation will combine engaged anthropological approaches with linguistic anthropological theories and methods.

Ethnographies of Heritage: Community and Landscape of the Mediterranean and Beyond

Archaeologists study objects and (socio-cultural) anthropologists investigate culture is how stereotype and conventions have long had it. As material culture studies have increasingly blurred these boundaries, the distinction is entirely meaningless when it comes to archaeological heritage. Taking its cue from material culture studies, this course explores how local communities experience the material remains from the past and (re)incorporate them into their contemporary lives.

Religion and Culture

Global events in recent years seem to defy the commonsensical idea that religious traditions would decline or disappear in the modern epoch. We examine classic theories and methods in the study of religion to understand the continuing vitality of spiritual contemplation, asceticism, myths, rituals, magic, witchcraft, experiences of healing, and other ways of thinking and acting that are typically associated with (or against) the concept of religion.

Anthropology of Homelessness

Homelessness emerged as a public concern in the United States and in other industrialized countries in the late 1970s as people began encountering people living on the streets, a way of life which had formerly been confined to the skid rows of large cities. In this course, through readings, readings, discussion, and hands on experiences with homeless populations, we will uncover the causes, conditions, and responses to homelessness. Each student will spend at least two hours per week in a local homeless-serving agency in order to gain face to face experiences. The field placements will be facilitated by the professor.

International Health: Anthropological Perspectives

This course explores the distinctive contribution that a critical approach—primarily that of medical anthropology—can make to the rapidly changing field of global health. The course takes a problem-based approach and focuses on “grand challenges", such as those posed by global pandemics, humanitarian crisis, or the limited reach of child and maternal health programs in “resource-poor” locations. Through ethnographic case studies, we will examine how the concepts and practices associated with global health interventions travel to different parts of the world and interact with local agendas.

History of Anthropology: Anthropological Theories

Looks at the way anthropological methods and theories have interlaced through history to understand the dominant concerns in present-day anthropology. What were the important issues that influenced the discipline's history? Who were the significant, and not so well known, historic personalities who shaped anthropological practice and gave it its identity? Enrollment limited to 20.

Faces of Culture

The seminar is designed to allow you as anthropology majors to question to debate and examine some of the assumptions of the discipline, and critically explore the multfacious uses of the concept. We will contextualize the study of culture with the history of anthropology and across other disciplines in the humanities and the social sciences. Limited to 20. Prerequisite: ANTH1900

Anthropology Dissertators' Seminar

This seminar is for post-field graduate students in residence at Brown who are at any stage of writing their dissertations. It is intended to support dissertators by providing a structured community, providing a setting for sharing goals, and workshopping writing.

Anthropological Demography

A seminar devoted to the investigation of the interface of anthropology (especially sociocultural anthropology) and demography. A wide variety of demographic topics-fertility, mortality, marriage, migration-are considered, and the links between anthropological and demographic writings on and approaches to these areas are examined.

Problems in Archaeology: Archaeology of Colonialism

Explores the theoretical discourses shaping anthropological approaches and defining archaeological projects on culture contact and colonialism. Attention will be given to examining colonial encounters between Europeans and indigenous peoples as ongoing processes rather than particular historical moments, and to looking at recent efforts at decolonizing archaeological practice.

Linguistic Theory and Practice

An introduction to theoretical and methodological issues in the study of language and social life. We begin by examining semiotic approaches to language. We turn to classical research on language as a structured system - covering such topics as phonology and grammatical categories - but we focus on the implications of such work for broader social scientific and humanistic research. We then consider areas of active contemporary research, including cognition and linguistic relativity, meaning and semantics, pronouns and deixis, deference and register, speech acts and performativity, interaction, verbal art and poetics, reported speech, performance, and linguistic ideology.